Razor: Yaqi double open comb
Blade: Gillette Green
Soap: A & E Asian Plum
Aftershave: A & E Asian Plum
All the cool kids are doing it 🙂 By *it* I mean Asian Plum, one of the new products from Ariana & Evans (The Shaving Shop, The Club, etc). First off… I don’t understand the branding. Is it one company, 3 companies? It confused the heck out of me. Much like the whole Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements/Crown King/How to grow a Moustache/Petal Pusher Fancies thing. I don’t understand why you want to muddy up your brand/product line. But that is neither her nor there.
This soap and splash seems to be popping up like crazy in the wet shaver forums I follow and was getting great reviews, so I just had to add it to my collection. It arrived yesterday and so today I gave it ago. I’ll be honest, I just don’t see what all the fuss is about. Off the puck, the scent is very mild. I barely pick it up, and therefor I have trouble picking out the scents at all. I was hoping it would jump out once lathered, but it didn’t really punch up with lathered either. The scent notes described are Plum, dried fruits, tobacco, tonka bean, coffee, vanilla and a touch of Plumeria. I took a smell of the aftershave and while it is still quite mild, I can catch a subtle bit of fruit, coffee, tobacco and vanilla. Based on the description I really had high hopes but the scent is just too mild to me, I cant really pick it up. I haven’t heard this feedback from others so perhaps it is just a blend that doesn’t work for my nose, it wouldn’t be the first time that I had a vastly different interpretation of scent strength compared with others.
What this product line didn’t have in scent strength it certainly made up for it in quality. The base of this soap was fantastic. I was able to whip up a lather quite easily and it had just the density I like in a soap. It provided plenty of cushion and was nice and slick. Combined with the Yaqi and Gillette green, I got a fantastic BBS shave. The matching aftershave was also quite nice. It does have a bit of alcohol but it also has some really nice and hydrating ingredients as well. I got no burn at all and my skin felt great on the post.
I wish I got more scent off this as I really liked the product, but sadly I cant see myself keeping this one for the long haul. Perhaps I will have to give another A & E line a try to see if this was just a one off. I certainly hope so.
